WESTON, W.Va. — The Shop ‘n Save Express reopened in Weston one week after record flooding in Lewis County.
The company was founded by the father of Del. Chris Phillips, R-Barbour, in 1983 and now operates stores in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, and New York.
Phillips said he’s been around the grocery business most of his life, and that also includes floods. The first store was opened in Belington, and in 1985 Phillips was there to bring that store back to life after that flood.
“We’ve been in business since 1983 when my dad founded this company,” Phillips said Thursday on MetroNews “Talkline.” “As a matter of fact, in 1985 I was standing in floodwater up to my chest in our first store in Belington.”
He didn’t think the flood of 2026 was even possible because the finished grade of the Weston store is above the floodplain elevation. None of the areas in the town or county could hold up against the estimated five inches of rainfall in a little more than 30 minutes.
“We had about two feet of water on the sales floor of the store,” Phillips said. “The night the flooding started, my fiancée said Weston is looking pretty bad. Is your store going to be ok?”
Over the seven days after the storm, Phillips said they had refrigeration issues to solve, product that had to be discarded and replaced, and the entire point-of-sale system at the front of the store had to be replaced. Workers from across the state worked almost around the clock in shifts to bring the store back to life.
“We’ve got a lot of really long-term relationships with vendors and our suppliers,” Phillips said. “It’s all about relationships, having trust, and having people you can pick up the phone to call to expedite what you need to get what you need the next day or that day if possible.”
Phillips gave all of the credit to workers from across the stores in West Virginia that pulled together to make it happen.
“We’ve got great people all across northern West Virginia, and we had store managers going in at 4 in the morning and then coming down to work an extended shift, and folks working all night,” Phillips said.
Lewis, Upshur, and five other counties continue to wait for the federal government to act on the expedited request for a federal disaster declaration.
U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito said the federal delegation from West Virginia is pushing to get a decision in order to speed up recovery efforts.
“We haven’t heard yet (that) the president has done that,” Capito said. “We are pressing daily with the White House to make sure that declaration comes as quickly as possible.”